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Magnetic Surveying for Buried Metallic Objects
Author(s) -
Barrows Larry,
Rocchio Judith E.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
groundwater monitoring and remediation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1745-6592
pISSN - 1069-3629
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6592.1990.tb00016.x
Subject(s) - demagnetizing field , magnetic anomaly , anomaly (physics) , drum , geology , magnetization , materials science , storage tank , magnetic field , geophysics , physics , condensed matter physics , engineering , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics , mechanical engineering
Field tests were conducted to determine representative total‐intensity magnetic anomalies due to the presence of underground storage tanks and 55‐gallon steel drums. Three different drums were suspended from a non‐magnetic tripod and the underlying field surveyed with each drum in an upright and a flipped plus rotated orientation. At drum‐to‐sensor separations of 11 feet, the anomalies had peak values of around 50 gammas and half‐widths about equal to the drum‐to‐sensor separation. Remanent and induced magnetizations were comparable; crushing one of the drums significantly reduced both. A profile over a single underground storage tank had a 1000‐gamma anomaly, which was similar to the modeled anomaly due to an infinitely long cylinder horizontally magnetized perpendicular to its axis. A profile over two adjacent tanks had a smooth 350‐gamma single‐peak anomaly even though models of two tanks produced dual‐peaked anomalies. Demagnetization could explain why crushing a drum reduced its induced magnetization and why two adjacent tanks produced a single‐peak anomaly. A 40‐acre abandoned landfill was surveyed on a 50‐ by 100‐foot rectangular grid and along several detailed profiles. The observed field had broad positive and negative anomalies that were similar to modeled anomalies due to thickness variations in a layer of uniformly magnetized material. It was not comparable to the anomalies due to induced magnetization in multiple, randomly located, randomly sized, independent spheres, suggesting that demagnetization may have limited the effective susceptibility of the landfill material. A different 6‐acre site survey conducted on a 10‐ by 10‐foot grid was analyzed to determine the maximum station spacing and line separation that could have been used. Essentially, all of the anomalies at this site would have been resolved by a survey conducted on a 20‐ by 20‐foot grid and the larger anomalies would have been detected by a 50‐ by 50‐foot grid.